US Politics- Enemy at the Gaetz

[DMC]

10 hours ago, Mlle. Zabzie said:

Jack Straw (UK Foreign Secretary - very charming).

....But have you met Jack Straw from Wichita?!?

Sorry, I'm pretty drunk and that's always amused me.  I remember when I first became familiar with Jack Straw - the Foreign Secretary - in the lead up to Iraq I was in high school and was..really into the Dead at the time.  Definitely one of my favorite songs of theirs, or in general.

[Martell Spy]

'Dumb son of a bitch': Trump rips McConnell at Mar-a-Lago
The former president spoke at an RNC donor retreat Saturday night.

https://www.politico.com/news/2021/04/11/trump-mcconnell-dumb-son-of-a-bitch-rnc-480748

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The former president spent several minutes tearing into McConnell, saying that he didn’t do enough to defend him during the February impeachment trial. At one point, three people familiar with the remarks said, Trump called the Senate GOP leader a “dumb son of a bitch.”

Trump also went after McConnell’s wife, former Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao, for resigning her cabinet post after the Jan. 6 insurrection.

A spokesperson for McConnell, the Kentucky Republican who was just reelected to a seventh six-year term last year, didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

 

 

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

On 4/8/2021 at 4:08 PM, Karlbear said:

Having an immigration crisis is a winner for Republicans, because they can go harder on their cruelty and 'law and order' bullshit. Anything that causes more fear and xenophobia is a major win for them. 

No it's not. It's very helpful with the most wicked factions of their base, but putting kids in cages was not popular at all. Plus, it exposes them to a major hypocritical hit as you can use their religion against them. 

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Because voting rights are decided either at the state level or the courts, and both are largely controlled by Republicans in the right places that they have a massive advantage. Again, doesn't matter if Washington State has great voting laws and systems if Washington State's election doesn't matter nationally. 

So that means you have to roll up for sleeves and work in all 50 states, and time and momentum are on our side. Look at what happened in Georgia. Why can't it happen everywhere within reason? Have faith and do not start from a position of subjected defeat.

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And I disagree. Their policy goals, if you want to talk about them as ephemeral as they are, are to allow states to enforce things as they see fit, reduce regulations and taxes (both of which require no real policy guidance and only ownership of POTUS or SCOTUS), and continue repression and illiberal practices. If they had policy goals which required federal legislation? Sure, that'd be an issue. But they don't, so it doesn't matter. Republicans are perfectly fine in a system that has gridlock and shittiness. They thrive in it.. 

There are some state that will never change. Idaho and Wyoming are probably always going to be red states. Oh well. But a huge chuck of the South can flip over time, especially with increased voter registration drives. This fatalism assumes nothing can change.

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And again, those Republican voters dying doesn't matter in the least unless they're being replaced by likely Democratic voters in the states that matter, and so far that's not been the case.

 What?

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It has already started. Why would it change - especially when democratic governments have shown to be largely inept in handling major crisis? Now, I don't think we'll go to pure dictatorships overnight - but places like the US are going to become more draconian and people like you are going to want that in 15 years as massive climate refugee crisis tax the ability of the country to provide for US citizens. In 15-20 years people won't just want a wall - they'll want an armed response to people attempting to enter the country

Don't tell me what I want, especially when you're going to say I want something that is the antithesis of my beliefs. 

[Ormond]

1 hour ago, Tywin et al. said:

 

There are some state that will never change. Idaho and Wyoming are probably always going to be red states. Oh well. But a huge chuck of the South can flip over time, especially with increased voter registration drives. This fatalism assumes nothing can change.

 

I wouldn't be 100% sure about even Idaho and Wyoming -- especially Idaho, which is the fastest growing state in the country because Boise is really booming, attracting new residents from California and other places. A case could be made for seeing Idaho as the next Colorado, though I admit because of the large LDS population in eastern Idaho it may be harder to flip than Colorado.

On the other hand, I don't think there is any state that will necessarily be perpetually safe for the Democrats. Change can certainly occur in both directions. It just takes longer than people working for change would like.  Complacency as well as fatalism can be fueled by assuming nothing can change.  

[Martell Spy]

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I wouldn't be 100% sure about even Idaho and Wyoming -- especially Idaho, which is the fastest growing state in the country because Boise is really booming, attracting new residents from California and other places. A case could be made for seeing Idaho as the next Colorado, though I admit because of the large LDS population in eastern Idaho it may be harder to flip than Colorado.

Yeah, California certainly shows how this can happen. Decades ago it was a state that was an incubator for major Republican politicians such as Nixon and Reagan. It's certainly hard to see how states like New York might transform politically, but long stretches of time can change all sorts of circumstances. 

It's still up in the air on if the Democrats can hold on to the old Blue Wall in the Midwest post-Biden. 

 

[Zorral]

The many kids of North Dakotans have found both Idaho and Montana the places they they wanted to move to after college, even before they went to college, thus choosing schools and universities in those states.  Considering who their parents are, and how close to their parents these young adults are, one highly doubts seeing Idaho at least leaving red behind.  Montana, being so popular with billionaires, w/o a dominating LDS presence, is rather different, though surely it has its share of survivalists, Aryan Nationalists, la-la-la, too.

On 4/10/2021 at 1:18 PM, DMC said:

Democrats believing McGovern was too far left for a presidential nominee and overreacting to it - stupidly and ineffectively - is political history.

 Considering the time in which this happened, I still seem him as left-left only by comparison to what the Dems did over and over and over in those decades, moving ever more right, to where many, many Dems went Reagan and moved right on to previous.

We keep forgetting how much that is considered left and socialist these days, back then was even acceptable -- for a while -- to the Republican party.  Enormous changes in both parties and the nation since then, a steady right right right trajectory toward authoritarianism and big biz in charge of it all, leaving more and more and more people without rights and recourse, and in poverty.

[Fragile Bird]

At the same time Trump was holding his high-priced fund raiser at Mar-a-Lago, the Women for Trump were holding an event at his Doral golf course. (The money keeps coming in!) This was the group that organized events running up to the insurrection event, and, iirc, didn’t they hold the permits that day?

Anyway, CNN is running a interview with one of the attendees at Doral. She asks the interviewer just what’s wrong with conspiracy theories anyway, she’s old enough to remember all the JFK assassination conspiracy theories, that was ok, wasn’t it? 

[Zorral]

"National Review Comes Out Against Democracy, Explicitly"

The proof is we know who lost in 2020.  He lost because Black people voted.  So, yay, National Review returns to its Buckley-eque roots and these jerkwaddies advocate to limit the franchise to we know who.

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2021/04/national-review-comes-out-against-democracy-explicitly.html

[Myshkin]

I have nothing to add to the current conversation, but I feel we are coming dangerously close to forgetting about Four Seasons Total Landscaping. Please do not forget about this pivotal moment in American history. 

[IheartIheartTesla]

On 4/10/2021 at 11:28 AM, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

Are you talking about in recent memory?  Could George McGovern really be called a moderate?

Yes, recent memory (I had Clinton in mind as the template)

Anyway, I'd stand by the assertion that the only way a 'radical' leftist could win is by turning out low-frequency voters, and that is always tougher coming from the left than the right, since uneducated whites without a college degree provide a near unlimited reservoir of those. You'd need a populist, but someone whose social views dont turn them off too much. Not sure it can be done right now.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

2 hours ago, Ormond said:

I wouldn't be 100% sure about even Idaho and Wyoming -- especially Idaho, which is the fastest growing state in the country because Boise is really booming, attracting new residents from California and other places. A case could be made for seeing Idaho as the next Colorado, though I admit because of the large LDS population in eastern Idaho it may be harder to flip than Colorado.

I have a hard time seeing either state, or any similarly composed state, changing anytime soon. There's simply too much intrenched in the culture for that to happen anytime soon. 

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On the other hand, I don't think there is any state that will necessarily be perpetually safe for the Democrats. Change can certainly occur in both directions. It just takes longer than people working for change would like.  Complacency as well as fatalism can be fueled by assuming nothing can change.  

Nah, there are several states that will probably be blue for the entirety of my life absent some unforeseeable change in the cultural and political landscape.

[DMC]

1 hour ago, Zorral said:

Considering the time in which this happened, I still seem him as left-left only by comparison to what the Dems did over and over and over in those decades, moving ever more right, to where many, many Dems went Reagan and moved right on to previous.

Whether McGovern actually was "too far left" is certainly arguable and almost entirely subjective.  And I tend to agree that he wasn't.  But the Dems did perceive him to be after he got trounced and overreacted accordingly.

[gruff one]

1 hour ago, Tywin et al. said:

I have a hard time seeing either state, or any similarly composed state, changing anytime soon. There's simply too much intrenched in the culture for that to happen anytime soon. 

Nah, there are several states that will probably be blue for the entirety of my life absent some unforeseeable change in the cultural and political landscape.

What is the entrenched  culture of Idaho and Montana?

What is the cultural landscape in blue states?

 

[williamjm]

1 hour ago, Trishkin said:

I have nothing to add to the current conversation, but I feel we are coming dangerously close to forgetting about Four Seasons Total Landscaping. Please do not forget about this pivotal moment in American history. 

I wonder what will be done to mark the first anniversary of this seismic event?

[ThinkerX]

2 hours ago, Chataya de Fleury said:

Indeed. I need to double check on t-shirt availability...

supposedly, they opened a store in your corner of the country.  spurious rumor insists the manager is somebody calling himself 'Kabear'

 

[Mlle. Zabzie]

20 minutes ago, Chataya de Fleury said:

Obviously, buy a commemorative T-shirt.

I am holding out for a bobble head that leaks shoe polish.

[Myshkin]

1 hour ago, williamjm said:

I wonder what will be done to mark the first anniversary of this seismic event?

Riding mower parade through the streets of Philadelphia. 

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

3 hours ago, gruff one said:

What is the entrenched  culture of Idaho and Montana?

What is the cultural landscape in blue states?

 

That's an odd place to make your first post.

Rural would be the simplest term to describe the culture of those two states. I just have a hard time seeing them trend blue anytime soon.

1 hour ago, Mlle. Zabzie said:

I am holding out for a bobble head that leaks shoe polish.

I think it's time for someone to ripoff and improve on the Pez dispenser. 

[Mlle. Zabzie]

2 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

That's an odd place to make your first post.

Rural would be the simplest term to describe the culture of those two states. I just have a hard time seeing them trend blue anytime soon.

I think it's time for someone to ripoff and improve on the Pez dispenser. 

Fun fact!  I have been to the Pez factory and museum in Connecticut.  We then went to New Haven for pizza (naturally).  I think that was a Modern day.  

[gruff one]

7 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

That's an odd place to make your first post.

Rural would be the simplest term to describe the culture of those two states. I just have a hard time seeing them trend blue anytime soon.

I think it's time for someone to ripoff and improve on the Pez dispenser. 

What is a rural culture? What makes it different from a blue state?